“I’m writing this from the headmaster’s office at the West London Free School which was officially opened this morning by the Mayor of London. Miraculously, the whole ceremony went off without a hitch – even our hastily-cobbled together curtain-pulling mechanism worked. Boris gave a brilliant speech, praising our school as one of the first taxpayer-funded schools to be set up by a group of parents and teachers and expressing the hope that other parents and teachers will follow in our footsteps. He paid particular tribute to the Secretary of State for Education and said he’d added a new inflection to the verb “to give”: We give, they gave, he gove. “He gove us these fantastic free schools,” he said.“

Congratulations are in order, but not everyone thought Toby would get to this point. Guido thinks militant free-school opponent Fiona Miller, aka Mrs Bad Al, owes Young an apology for her “you’ll never do it” attacks…

Quote of the Day

Dominic Raab wrote in his letter of resignation…

“This is, at its heart, a matter of public trust,” he told the PM, concluding: “I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto at the last election… I believe that the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom. I cannot support an indefinite backstop arrangement, where the EU holds a veto over our ability to exit…”